[mrxbombastic]

You guys have completely missed my point.

Considering the horrid ridership, UPX is a scandalous waste of money and heads should be rolling at QP but it was a political line to begin with and the decision to build it was solely due to the Pan Am Games and had nothing to do with proper transit planning.

UPX can, however, prove to be useful as a testing ground for RER. RER is a great idea but there is surprisingly little solid information to back it up. It's relying on the "build it and they will come" transit planning and certainly sometimes it works and other not but it's rare to have an actual system up and running that can be used as a gauge for success and demand. Toronto is in that position with the UPX so they should take advantage of it.

UPX is RER...............all day, 15 minutes each way service using single level EMU/DMU designed trains. ML should be using the UPX as a information gathering tool for a RER roll out............you wouldn't buy a car without driving it first, so why build a RER without gauging public opinion about it?

These new commuters from Weston using the service new riders or just riders switching from GO?.......find out. How are people getting to the stations walking, bus........find out. Would the riders rather have less glamour on their ride with cheaper prices?..............ask them. Has anyone thought of doing a 4 week trial and bringing in fair integration just for this one line where the base UPX price is the same but if you got to the station by TTC then the price will be deducted 100% from the YP fare? ............do it and study the resulting changes {if any} in ridership on the UPX, GO ridership along UPX stations, and changes in TTC bus/subway ridership that serves those stations.

Then try another 4 week trial of a flat etra fee on top of your TTC ticket/pass of an extra $0.50 from both Weston and Bloor to Union and a $6 Pearson fare.........and again study all the stats including ridership along the Spadina subway line. Use it to understand what a corresponding service on the other side of Union to Scar would have on traffic on Danforth and the Y&B station.

Eventually allow another 4 week study on completely free fares with a TTC ticket or pass treating just like any other TTC service and again studying the results.

Find out what all the above trials have on revenues as ML may find that the cheaper the fares go, the more money they have coming in. Use the info to extrapolate how a RER in Toronto would effect TTC traffic point, over crowding, and revenues. ML could actually find out what ALL Torontonians think of the service and not just the ones who can afford to take it. Look at the changes in ridership but also who those new or switched riders are in terms of age, work and destination which will help determine how many Pearson employees would take the service if they could afford it.

The UPX is a wealth of information so take advantage of that opportunity and use it as such.

I agree entirely with what your saying. The UPX is a hotbed of information and yes Metrolinx should be using it for testing purposes in all the ways that you mention. To do so would be short sighted, not necessarily uncommon for them with respect to this project.

I am done however with this "Oh such a waste of money" conversation. The service exists. Was it a colossally short sighted politically expedient waste? Should heads roll? In many ways yes on both accounts. But here is the current situation. The money to build it was spent, and the service will not be ceased any time soon. Neither, will it have its schedules and frequency levels changed either in the near term. Metrolinx/Province will subsidize its ops for at least until 2018. On these three things, I am willing to bet heavily on.

With respect to income levels, I did not ride it before because it was so damn expensive. I rode it from Weston to Pearson for $11 ONCE before the price drop and I trembled tapping my PRESTO card. The price reduction has only now made it affordable for me on a 2-4 times a week basis. That said, based on the clientele I encounter using the service, ridership demographics are mixed. The three main categories of people who use it, and keep in mind this is just a rough observation based on appearance and behaviours and overheard discussion....... is travellers, upper class professionals who park at park at Pearson and middle class folks who take the train on occasion to work and who used to take GO on occasion.

This is why we need Metrolinx to conduct so much more data gathering to understand demographic and destination shifts and pricing level changes.

 

[ssiguy2]

I agree that the money was spent so you should keep it going, I wasn't inferring that the service should be shut down.

My point was to use it to determine future ridership projections on other RER lines, effects on TTC overall and station ridership, and impacts on both TTC and GO revenues. The TTC may complain that the more people taking RER will result in lower TTC ridership but they may find out that it's the exact opposite where all those people who drive or get driven to the GO stations to avoid the extra TTC fare may actually switch to the bus to get to the GO/RER station and maybe more people will take the TTC.

The UPX is a lemon but if you have lemons you make lemonade. Vancouver did this with the SkyTrain. When it opened there were all kinds of bugs, the trains were noisy, rough, small, and unreliable. At the time there was talk of just ripping the tracks up and converting it to LRT at enormous cost. Instead Translink worked out the kinks, pressured Bombardier for larger, roomier, brighter, and smoother trains which they got and now Vancouver has an exceptionally good system........shame Toronto didn't learn that lesson for the SRT.

The ridership is still so low on the UPX that using it as a trial system and getting both technical and patrons feedback will make the line and all of RER far more successful. People may get a little confused over pricing during the trial periods but if it is brought in by first total fare integration, the nominal {for example} $0.50 flat fee on top of a TTC ticket, and then just a TTC ticket the prices are declining and no one will bitch if the fares are changing again if the fare is heading down.

 

[W. K. Lis]

With all the condos and offices going up within walking distance around Union Station, there could be increases in ridership in the years and decades to come.

Now, if only there will be high-rise developments (and connections) at Bloor and Weston stations, also within walking distance. That's the key, "walking distance". There are really no discount or free transfers with the TTC to and from UPX, at the moment, which would increase ridership even more.

 

[nfitz]

as someone who takes the UpExpress from Weston GO to Union for my morning commute quite regularly. i can say that waiting for a GO train which runs every hour through the day is laughable. yes it has higher frequency in the morning peak which makes it competitive. but the second it moves to hourly service UPX is the service of choice.

Agreed. I only suggested higher UPX fares during rush hour.

 

[W. K. Lis]

According to the mini schedule, see link, the GO trains leave Weston Station at 6:12, 6:30, 7:07, 7:32, 8:00, 8:30, 8:53, 9:34, 10:29, 11:34, 12:34, 13:34, and 14:34 and nothing after. With UPX, it leaves Weston Station at the x:44, x:59, x:14, and x:28, from 5:44 until 1:14.

 

[crs1026]

According to the mini schedule, see link, the GO trains leave Weston Station at 6:12, 6:30, 7:07, 7:32, 8:00, 8:30, 8:53, 9:34, 10:29, 11:34, 12:34, 13:34, and 14:34 and nothing after. With UPX, it leaves Weston Station at the x:44, x:59, x:14, and x:28, from 5:44 until 1:14.

I wonder how the ridership and revenue would compare if ML were to ratchet UPX back to 20 min headways - I can't believe people would decline to wait the extra 5 minutes, now that the fare is so much lower than a limo - and increased GO Bramalea service to every 20 minutes, with one train in three continuing to Mount Pleasant (the current hourly service). Wouldn't hurt the Weston/Bloor ridership, and would build longer distance GO service, where the fare is higher than W/B.

- Paul

 

[ssiguy2]

That's the kind of thing ML should find out by using the line as a testing ground. Perhaps what you are suggesting would be a stellar success or perhaps an epic failure but better to find that out now then after billions are spent on RER just to find out that it was money ill spent.

 

[dowlingm]

UPX is 15 min 2-way 7x20 yes, but it is tough to say it is a model for other lines as RER because of the amount of track capacity built to be dedicated to it. Simply scaling all lines will quickly run into movement limits at pinch points which cannot be resolved without massively expensive solutions such as flyunders, and those only where there is the physical space to do so.

 

[vic]

7:53pm by Vic Gedris, on Flickr
I'm generally not a huge fan of the colour scheme used for these trains., but it looked nice during the sunset last Sunday.

 

[smallspy]

Do we know if that was a 3-car train? It's quite possible it was a 2-car set given that there aren't enough 3-car trains to run the full 5-train rotation. Maybe the short-term solution is to re-organize the sets into 6 3-car trains, rather than 3 2-car trains and 4 3-car trains. We might end up with a weird-looking set with three aerodynamic cabs, but that's a small price to pay for the extra capacity.

There are 12 "A" cars and 6 "C" cars, which in theory was supposed to make for 6 3-car trains.

The problem is that there are 5 trains needed for the daily equipment cycle, and the equipment has not been able to run reliably enough to allow them to do this. Trains still regularly get cycled into and out of service in the middle of the day.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[TOareaFan]

Road one on Saturday that sounded like it was possessed by some howling/moaning spirit....ride was comfortable enough but the noise was a bit disconcerting.

 

[steveintoronto]

I read a tweet yesterday which noted the UPX being standing room only at 5.30.
https://twitter.com/adamcf/status/731235419573108736

Is anyone aware of crowd management to ensure airport passengers get on at peak now? This was my exact concern when fare reductions were first proposed...

Just as bicycles are allowed on or not during certain times, so it should be for limiting commuter use if it is impeding the higher paying airport fares. As it stands, I've pointedly asked staff on the UPX as to "what do you do if the train fills up?". The answer (from three on-board attendants) has been: "We have the right to deny others from boarding once the train is full". That would easily work coming south, going north from Union could be problematic, but none-the-less, the very aspect that attracts GO fare travellers can be their undoing in making it pay.

From the Tweet: [I'm riding UPX for the first time. 2/3 of the passengers on this standing room-only trip got off at Bloor or Weston.]
Response:
[Yeah, because it’s rush hour. Your point?]
The point to some isn't clear: Some paid a premium to get to the airport. Like it or not, (and I don't, but let's be fair) that remains the prime purpose of that route, and until the fare to the airport is calculated by the same formula for all GO trips, the UPX ticket holders should have boarding priority.

What a mess, the logistics and politics are for Queen's Park and Metrolinx to figure out, but why penalize the traveller who has paid extra in good faith to get to the airport? With the extra passenger staff still used for UPX, UPX ticketing should be a boarding pass of sorts. It gets complicated for Bloor and Weston boarders go north, so it might have to be determined by known traffic flows applied to time segments.

On the other hand, it's good to see the train being used more. Twice now I've taken cycle and dog one stop north from Bloor to Weston to then cycle down the Humber Trail w/ dog to Lakeshore and then east. We're doing our bit for health, exercise and using an underutilized resource, but during rush hours? Obviously, that's unfair, and staff would rightly refuse carriage, as the regulations state.

lol...one quick observation: There's been more than a few dirty looks from obviously well-dressed and 'self entitled' elitists, as if 'my type' (bike, bike-shorts, a dog and a wide grin) don't belong on 'their train'. Well...I'm just waiting for one to say something....and I'll lambaste them as to the "taxpayer subsidizing them". Nuff said on that.

As other posters have pointed out, increasing the fleet is problematic with the cost and difficulties the Nippon Sharyos have presented. It's a real mess, doubtless, but we have to figure out a way forward on this, it can't go back to being what it was.

 

[steveintoronto]

Road one on Saturday that sounded like it was possessed by some howling/moaning spirit....ride was comfortable enough but the noise was a bit disconcerting.

Yeah, two times I've been on, there's been severe metal groaning coming from, or extending from the bogie under where I was sitting. Third time on recently, it ran quietly. Those bogies are Cardan shaft driven, whether both bogies per car are or not I don't know, since it is mechanical, unless there was a differential, that would prove problematic (think 2WD v. 4WD in a car with locked axles). Fluid coupling has some real advantages, in the very same drive loss the mechanical transmission attempts to eliminate.

I suspect that's where the problem is, in the drive shaft coupling, and light bogies. They can and do, evidently, run really rough. It even slams against the floor at times, could also be loose mountings from torque wrenching by the drive shaft. Whole discussion in itself, but technical details of the transmission system has proven impossible for me to find even after extensive Googling. Closest to detail is from SMART, and they appear not to use the mechanical transmission.

 

[robmausser]

There are 12 "A" cars and 6 "C" cars, which in theory was supposed to make for 6 3-car trains.

The problem is that there are 5 trains needed for the daily equipment cycle, and the equipment has not been able to run reliably enough to allow them to do this. Trains still regularly get cycled into and out of service in the middle of the day.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

The one I rode on friday was definitely having problems with its transmission

Felt like a 16 year old learning clutch for the first time.

 

[44 North]

7:53pm by Vic Gedris, on Flickr
I'm generally not a huge fan of the colour scheme used for these trains., but it looked nice during the sunset last Sunday.

I'm also not a big fan of the colour scheme (in a general context). But after reading excerpts from the actual designer, and why he chose the colours he did, I definitely appreciate the design team's choice. The greens and coppery hues, particularly when shining in the 'golden hour' that you excellently captured, do bring about the scenery of Ontario's natural environment.

I also captured this on Sunday, but missed the sunset by 30mins. From one of the Cell Parking lots.

The one I rode on friday was definitely having problems with its transmission

Felt like a 16 year old learning clutch for the first time.

Interesting. I never really thought about trains having transmissions.